Flooding and its problems

Hi, all! :)

On Friday, May 16, 2003 14:47, mids wrote:
> What we did all expect to happen did happen, some serious spamming of
> #anonymous is going on. Remember that this is covered under freedom of
> speech and as long as it doesnt threat the existence of IIP it is okay.

	A small personal opinion of mine: I believe that freedom of speech must be 
used with responsibility. There is certain usage of that freedom that isn't 
really responsible and should be punished. (Note the difference: the person 
does the act and then is punished ... as opposed to being prevented from 
preforming the act at all.) Here's an example: If I learn very important 
military secrets and then tell them to the top 3 enemies of my country, it is 
treason, and I can (and should) be punished. Thus, I believe that freedom of 
speech is important, but that it must be used with responsibility, and when 
it is not, then punitive action can be taken.
	However, because of the way (and the reasons for which) IIP is designed, I 
don't really think punitive action should be taken except for in extreme 
cases. (I think there could be a few extreme cases, but most would involve 
situations that could result in physical death in the real world.)
	Anyway, I felt that should be said. Before anyone starts yelling at me for 
spouting opinion, just remember that the statement to which I was responding 
was also opinion. :)

> I didn't notice any performance impact of this flooding, /part
> #anonymous is easy to type.

	Same here. The network seemed to work fine.

>
> There is another problem though... Some that I didn't hope to come true.
> As you are all aware of I do host Trent. I don't host it on my own
> server anymore, because the connection is not that stable. It is hosted
> on a commercial provider and I do pay for it. $250 / year.
> And it doesn't include unlimited filestorage for databases.

	Ah! What happens in IIP touches the real world! Free speech comes at a price!
	As for solving the problem, it won't be a problem when we reach IIP 1.2, but 
that could be a long way off. If the case became extreme, perhaps we could 
try asking ibilio.org if they'd be willing to help host it. I'm sure other 
good ideas will come up too. (Perhaps you could mention this unexpected 
problem at the next iip-dev meeting, mids?)

>
> Any ideas how to resolve this? I do have one, but it will be a last
> resort.

	I'm guessing that this "last resort" might be expiring inactive ID's or 
something similar. Let's hope we don't have to go that far.

	Anyway, this has been an interesting experiment. Maybe some time we could 
organize a proper experiment of the _network's_ strength. We could create 
lots of bots (and _not_ register them with trent) and try to bring down the 
whole network. It would have to be done for only a short time limit (we don't 
want to obstruct the rights of others more than necissary), and we would need 
to recruit several people with high bandwith connections. Lastly, we could 
have all the bots' nick's start with an identifying prefix so they would be 
easy to /ignore. And once all is said and done, the results of the test would 
be posted to the iip-dev mailing list.
	(It might be a good idea to do something like this now in the centralized 
model of IIP, and then do it again once we get to a stable edition of IIP 
1.2. We could then compare which system is more robust, and work on further 
improving IIP 1.2 with the data.)
	Just some ideas. :) I suggest that if there is enough intrest, that it be 
discussed at the next iip-dev meeting.

>
> mids

	-- Hezekiah

P.S. (and off-topic): If ANYONE knows how to do an FTP install of SuSE linux 
with a normal modem (i.e. 28.8 Kbps) and could tell me how to do it, I would 
be _very_ greatful. The normal FTP install methods seem to require a high 
speed connection over Ethernet. Yes. I realize downloading with a modem would 
take a long time. No. I don't care. And no; buying the copy is out of the 
question (this is for someone who is not willing to pay for Linux ... and in 
my opinion shouldn't have to anyway!)

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